Read Online The Killing of Bobbi Lomax by Cal Moriarty - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Cal Moriarty
Tags: Crime
Ads: Link
had cleaned the barbecue, right before he’d burnt the papers in it. He didn’t want 1982’s burger fat sullying his pristine, freshly made 1849 ink.
Over the past month he’d spent a few days in various university libraries across the state acquiring copies of the author’s signature, plus samples of his handwriting: verified, genuine copies. He had found ten in all, from various stages of the author’s life, and he had traced them out again and again and again. Then he’d homed in on a particular year, a year when the author had been most prolific in his letter writing, and Clark had focused on perfecting – as near as possible – the signature of that year. He noticed that each period in the writer’s life had generated slight, almost imperceptible, changes to the signature. As little as a decade later it was very different to how it used to be. After he dispensed with the tracing he concentrated on generating the signature himself over and over. Almost five hundred times. It was vital to perfect the signature first, before embarking on anything more ambitious. He wanted to be ambitious. But he would be patient.
But he couldn’t get the signature down. Every time the damn ‘tell’ gave him away. Every time there was a hesitation mark somewhere in the signature no matter how hard he tried to relax, free his hand, his arm, his shoulder of tension. He knew from his research it was what forgery experts looked for – and always found – it was the one thing that marked out the forger from the forgee. Hesitation. No one ever thinks about their signature, they just do it. It is one of man’s rare hesitation-free zones. Even crossing the road doesn’t come without either hesitation, thought or some awareness of danger unless you are completely distracted. Genuine signatures just flow. But no matter how much he attempted to discard mechanical thought, when he placed his efforts under the microscope, there it was: the hesitation, every time, even the faintest of tremors, but a tremor all the same and so he would start again. Until it was perfect to the human eye he wouldn’t bother to dig out the high-grade microscope he’d bought at the city university’s yard sale last year, for he knew that under its unforgiving gaze the hesitation would look less like a tremor and more like a devastating earthquake marked out on a seismograph.
When he wasn’t prepping the technical side of his plan, for every moment of the past month Clark had completely immersed himself in the author’s life. He felt that if tomorrow he had to write a PhD proposal he would know more about the author’s life than the professor assessing it. Now with his research complete he had everything. It had taken over a month, but it had to be done right. Perfect, that’s what it had to be: perfect. He knew what he had to do next. What he didn’t know was if it would work or not.
He had already recorded the tape he would use to hypnotize himself. Not the same tape as before, but a different one, unique to his subject, the very subject he knew he must become, just like Dr Mesmer’s subjects had – temporarily – become jockeys, expert dancers and, even, dogs. Clark didn’t like to think his little experiment might go awry and he might spend the rest of his life as man’s best friend. He really hoped that wasn’t possible.
He had prepared a safe word. So even if somehow his life became a living resurrection of the author’s, if he followed the plan as he had clearly set it out on the tape then the name would be repeated by himself and others, and that repetition would hopefully release him from a hypnotic life of surreal servitude to the strange ghost of a long-dead author.
For authenticity’s sake, and in the hope that it would help him get under quickly and deeply into the mind of a man who last breathed in 1849, Clark had voiced the recording with heavy traces of a Bostonian accent. Even though Clark’s was a strained
Over the past month he’d spent a few days in various university libraries across the state acquiring copies of the author’s signature, plus samples of his handwriting: verified, genuine copies. He had found ten in all, from various stages of the author’s life, and he had traced them out again and again and again. Then he’d homed in on a particular year, a year when the author had been most prolific in his letter writing, and Clark had focused on perfecting – as near as possible – the signature of that year. He noticed that each period in the writer’s life had generated slight, almost imperceptible, changes to the signature. As little as a decade later it was very different to how it used to be. After he dispensed with the tracing he concentrated on generating the signature himself over and over. Almost five hundred times. It was vital to perfect the signature first, before embarking on anything more ambitious. He wanted to be ambitious. But he would be patient.
But he couldn’t get the signature down. Every time the damn ‘tell’ gave him away. Every time there was a hesitation mark somewhere in the signature no matter how hard he tried to relax, free his hand, his arm, his shoulder of tension. He knew from his research it was what forgery experts looked for – and always found – it was the one thing that marked out the forger from the forgee. Hesitation. No one ever thinks about their signature, they just do it. It is one of man’s rare hesitation-free zones. Even crossing the road doesn’t come without either hesitation, thought or some awareness of danger unless you are completely distracted. Genuine signatures just flow. But no matter how much he attempted to discard mechanical thought, when he placed his efforts under the microscope, there it was: the hesitation, every time, even the faintest of tremors, but a tremor all the same and so he would start again. Until it was perfect to the human eye he wouldn’t bother to dig out the high-grade microscope he’d bought at the city university’s yard sale last year, for he knew that under its unforgiving gaze the hesitation would look less like a tremor and more like a devastating earthquake marked out on a seismograph.
When he wasn’t prepping the technical side of his plan, for every moment of the past month Clark had completely immersed himself in the author’s life. He felt that if tomorrow he had to write a PhD proposal he would know more about the author’s life than the professor assessing it. Now with his research complete he had everything. It had taken over a month, but it had to be done right. Perfect, that’s what it had to be: perfect. He knew what he had to do next. What he didn’t know was if it would work or not.
He had already recorded the tape he would use to hypnotize himself. Not the same tape as before, but a different one, unique to his subject, the very subject he knew he must become, just like Dr Mesmer’s subjects had – temporarily – become jockeys, expert dancers and, even, dogs. Clark didn’t like to think his little experiment might go awry and he might spend the rest of his life as man’s best friend. He really hoped that wasn’t possible.
He had prepared a safe word. So even if somehow his life became a living resurrection of the author’s, if he followed the plan as he had clearly set it out on the tape then the name would be repeated by himself and others, and that repetition would hopefully release him from a hypnotic life of surreal servitude to the strange ghost of a long-dead author.
For authenticity’s sake, and in the hope that it would help him get under quickly and deeply into the mind of a man who last breathed in 1849, Clark had voiced the recording with heavy traces of a Bostonian accent. Even though Clark’s was a strained
Similar Books
